Those of you who have kept up with this blog know that I consider the verse markings in my bible to be just as inspired as the words themselves. As a result, I have always been uncomfortable dividing my reading evenly using a consistent amount of chapters or pages on a daily basis. I sought for something more in harmony with the natural divisions. If I read a certain number of chapters a day, then my reading often awkwardly stops one or two chapters into a book, or just a chapter or two from the end. Often stories are cut up. I sought for another way.
Now, I divide each book as I see it naturally divide. Accordingly, I read 5 chapters a day in Genesis for 10 straight days. I read 8 chapters a day in Exodus for 5 straight days. I read 9 chapters a day in Leviticus and Numbers. I slow down and read 2 chapters a day in Deuteronomy for 17 straight days. I realize that I could read Leviticus in 9 days of 3 chapters each, or Numbers in 9 days of 4 chapters each. I have chosen this schedule so that I finish in 6 months.
The great advantage to me is that it mixes up how much I read on a daily basis. Reading Numbers in 4 days of 9 chapters each is often grueling. I read 384 verses, 301 verse, 288 verses, and 315 verses. It's not very consistent. In fact, that's what I love about it. I am a sinner. I get weary of routine. My flesh loves to just read along and not pay attention. There is something about reading each book as its own unit, and dividing it as it divides naturally that has kept my interest higher to each book, and added just enough change up to keep my rotten flesh happy.
Then there are the 17 days that I spend in Deuteronomy. I read as little as 38 verses in one day. There is no day in Deuteronomy when I read 100 verses. All together, in my reading of the Old and New Testaments, there are over thirty days when I read less than 100 verses. This is counterbalanced by at least 3 days when I read over 400 verses. The longest is when I read I Kings in 2 days of 11 chapters each. The first day is 434 verses.
Occasionally, this has lead to problems. Do I read I Samuel in 1 day or over 31 days? I'll quote from a blog post dated August 1, 2017.
I Samuel made that system difficult. There are 31 chapters in I Samuel and 31 just doesn't divide. At first I tried reading the book in one day, but it's kind of like taking a cold shower, invigorating once, but not to be repeated. Reading a chapter a day for 31 days made folly out of my whole system and so I sought for a more natural way to divide the book. I found the key to dividing it by looking at its alternative title. The King James Bible gives the Book of I Samuel an alternative title calling it the First Book of the Kings. There are two kings in the Book of I Samuel. Saul is anointed king and then later David is anointed. Could it be that the book is divided equally between both kings? Yes, it is. Having an uneven amount of chapters, I Samuel divides with chapter 16 being the middle chapter. There are 15 chapters before it and 15 chapters after it. Chapter 16 has 23 verses in it. Having an uneven amount of verses, verse 12 is the exact middle verse there being 11 verses prior and 11 verse after. What is this 12th verse of chapter 16, the exact middle verse of I Samuel? And he sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to. And the LORD said, Arise, anoint him: for this is he, I Samuel 16:12. That's right, the Book of I Samuel divides exactly in the middle with the anointing of David as king. His anointing is the fulcrum of the book. There are two kings in the book and half of the book is for one king and the other half is for the other king. With that in mind, the book divides quite naturally. There are 3 distinct divisions of 4 chapters each, a middle division of 7 chapters, then 3 more divisions of 4 chapters. The first 4 chapters deals with Eli as the priest who judges Israel. The next 4 chapters deal with Samuel as the judge. The next 4 chapters deal with Saul ruling Israel in the will of God. The middle seven chapters start with the beginning of Saul's apostasy, he is replaced in the middle, and they end with Saul naked to his shame and prophesying. The next 4 chapters deal with David in flight. The next 4 deal with David in triumph and the last 4 deal with the destruction of Saul. The book quite naturally divides 4-4-4-7-4-4-4. Coincidence? I trow not. We will see in subsequent posts that the numbering system of the King James Bible is real. I don't pretend to know or understand it all, but because I was trained from my salvation onwards that the verse markings in a King James Bible are infallible, and because I have looked for the patterns, I have seen more than my peers.
By using this system to read, I have discovered many hitherto fore undiscovered gems about the numbering system in the bible. In the next post I will give a day by day schedule.